We've had a very exciting opening 4 Stages of this year's La Vuelta a España and long may that continue. I thought I'd write up a quick post on what we've learnt so far, and evaluate who seems to be in the strongest position out of the GC contenders, KOM contenders and the Points jersey contenders.
I hope you enjoy the read, and as always please give me your own views below!
#1 | Kwiatkowski is ready to challenge for a Grand Tour overall lead!
Team Sky's Polish National Road Race Champion put in an excellent ride on Stage 1's ITT to finish just 6 seconds short of BMC's Rohan Dennis. And although Stage 2 wasn't completely flat, I think it was a surprise to all of us that Rohan Dennis finished 13 minutes 31 seconds off the pace and relinquished the lead over to Kwiatkowski.
I think both Team Sky & Kwiatkowski didn't expect (but also didn't want) to be in red so early as such they've had to change their tactics. It's clear that Team Sky don't really know how Kwiatkowski is going to match up against the strong climbers such as Nairo Quintana, and it was certainly evident yesterday on Stage 4 that Team Sky didn't want to push the pace of the peloton so hard only for Yates, Quintana, Valverde, etc. just to benefit from it if Kwiatkowski couldn't keep up in the final kilometres; they'd much rather lose the jersey to a breakaway rider who definitely has no chance of keeping it than one of the big guns.
That being said, Kwiatkowski had no issue keeping up on yesterday's Stage albeit if he did lose key time to Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) & Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), so we could see a reverse in Team Sky's play.
#2 | Key LottoNL-Jumbo Domestiques look unbeatable!
On yesterday's Stage the breakaway held a strong 9 minutes lead with just ~ 30km to go and if it weren't for LottoNL-Jumbo, that lead would have been sustained for the rest of the day. Something clicked for them yesterday and their train in the closing 10km's cut the breakaway's lead in half, with even some of their own riders surprised with the efforts
and pace they were able to produce.
I previously thought LottoNL-Jumbo's young American prospect Sepp Kuss could be destined for that KOM jersey after his supreme performances at the Tour of Utah, but having witnessed his Domestique duty yesterday I think he's going to be a huge asset for the team; Steven Kruijswijk & George Bennett look to be both very good shouts for the GC.
#3 | Big Names Suffer already!
Potentially not too surprising as both of them have recently undergone surgery and are still recovering but Richie Porte (BMC Racing Team) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) have riden themselves completely out of the GC battle. Richie Porte sits 40 mins 33 seconds down on Kwiatkowski and Nibali sits 12 mins 33 seconds down.
Other riders certainly don't seem to have the performance level they are expected to have with Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) over 9 minutes down, Pello Bilbao (Astana Pro Team) almost 10 minutes down, Simon Geschke (Team Sunweb) 13 minutes down and Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) almost 17 minutes down. All of these riders should ideally be looking for a top 10-15 GC finish with their potential ability level.
My Favourites to be Eventual Classification Winners:
(^^^) v. strong contenders, (^^) strong contenders, (^) regular contenders
General Classification
(^^^) Simon Yates, Wilco Keldermann, Nairo Quintana
(^^) Emanuel Buchmann, Steven Kruijswijk, Thibaut Pinot
(^) Alejandro Valverde, Michal Kwiatkowski, Ion Izagirre
KOM Classification
(^^^) Luis Ángel Mate, Ben Gastauer, Ben King
(^^) Pierre Rolland, Thomas De Gendt, Alejandro Valverde
(^) Jordi Simon, Laurens De Plus, Lars Boom
Points Classification
(^^^) Elia Viviani, Matteo Trentin, Giacomo Nizzolo
(^^) Peter Sagan, Nacer Bouhanni, Simone Consonni
(^) Danny van Poppel, Ryan Gibbons, Alejandro Valverde